


Aftermath 'verse

by tabaqui



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 20:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabaqui/pseuds/tabaqui
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It took Sam four months to get Dean out of Hell. Four months in which the world was black and white – on mute. Four months, six days, and seventeen hours and Sam felt like he might sleep for a year, after. Dean slept for three days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath 'verse

**Author's Note:**

> This marked both gen and m/m, because for the most part it *is* gen. There is one, very short scene at the very end that edges into m/m territory. Possibly triggery, as post-Hell Dean is suffering from PTSD. Because they're not very long, I've put all three 'Aftermath' stories together in one post.
> 
> Part 1: The title and quote is from Shakespeare's 'As You Like It'.
> 
> Part 2: Title - and quote - is from 'The Life of King Henry the Fifth' by Shakespeare.
> 
> Part 3: Title and quoted text is from Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet'. The Latin is 'deliver us from evil' from 'The Lord's Prayer' and parts of the 'Laudes Divinae', or 'Divine Praises'. Both were found [here](http://www.thesacredheart.com/latpray.htm#divpra). Originally posted in April and July of 2008.

_  
_'The Cannon's Mouth'

_Then a soldier,  
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,  
Jealous in honor, sudden, and quick in quarrel,  
Seeking the bubble reputation  
Even in the cannon’s mouth._  
  
  
  
It took Sam four months to get Dean out of Hell. Four months in which the world was black and white – on mute. Four months, six days, and seventeen hours and Sam felt like he might sleep for a year, after. Dean slept for three days.  
  
On the fourth day, Dean showered half the morning and then got dressed, and Sam forced himself to look away from the marks that covered Dean's skin. Scars, or maybe the memory of them. They were silvery-grey, flaring to life when Dean turned just so. Fading when he was in shadow, but they told their tale well enough. Sam was guiltily, pathetically grateful that the blood and soot and filth that had covered Dean had simply washed away, like a brittle cocoon in a summer rain. But Dean was no butterfly.  
  
Sam clenched his fists in his lap and stared at his boot laces until Dean came and sat slowly down next to him on the foot of the bed. Not touching, not quite touching. Heat coming off his skin as though he were fevered, the scent of Dial soap and cheap shampoo undercut with something bitter and burning. Faint, but there.  
  
"How long was I gone?" Dean's voice was rough – tarnished steel, the corrosion blooming through – and Sam winced a little at it. It was the first time Dean had spoken since Sam had gotten him out.  
  
"Four...four months." Sam studied Dean's profile. There was one scar, that cut across Dean's left eye, enough to nick his eyebrow – to make the lid pull a little, subtle but _there_ , and Sam wanted to touch it, smooth it away, but he didn't. "I'm...sorry –"  
  
"Jesus, Sam." Dean looked up at Sam, merest hint of a smile pulling the corner of his mouth up. "You're the only person I know who'd apologize for getting someone _out_ of Hell."  
  
"I should have figured it out faster," Sam said, and Dean's fist lifted from his thigh – uncurled and hovered a moment and then settled again. Still not touching, and Sam bit his lip hard.  
  
"Most people couldn't have figured it out at all." Dean rubbed his palms on his jeans – stood abruptly and paced to the door – back to the bed. Fingers reaching out to skim the cheap veneer of the dresser, the dusty surface of the TV screen. "I'm so hungry I could eat a fucking hellhound."  
  
That forced a bark of startled laughter out of Sam and Dean half grinned, his fingers skipping lightly over the hilt of Sam's knife – butt of his favorite gun – the worn cover of Dad's journal. All nestled in the duffels with clothes and books and scribbled-over Mead notebooks, the wire bindings crushed and the bits of left-over paper edges sticking out like albino grass.  
  
"Yeah, yeah, sure, there's – you want – we can order something in. It's cold out, raining –"  
  
"Sure, yeah," Dean agreed.  
  
Too fast, Sam thought, but he wasn't going to argue. Felt like he was walking on a thin rime of ice and it would shatter if he moved too fast.  
  
"Pizza, okay? I want some pizza."  
  
"I'm on it," Sam said, dragging the ratty Yellow Pages out of the bottom of the night stand. Feeling almost manic, flipping the dingy pages, finding the P's. "Dominoes or Pizza Hut or...this local place...Anthony's Pizza Palace."  
  
"Only if they've got wings." Dean was digging down into Sam's duffel, pulling out shirts – jeans. Unrolling and unfolding and then twitching them back into shape – into stacks. Sorting and smoothing and tucking them away again and Sam ordered and then just watched until Dean sent him a sidelong, guilty glance and left it, settling on the bed again.  
  
"Where's the remote, Sam?"  
  
"Uh..." Sam had to actually think about that – finally dug it out of the twist of covers on his bed. Dean had all but bitch-slapped him out the bed-making habit he'd picked up in those long months alone, after the Trickster. He'd carefully _not_ made the bed once this second time, making everything as different as he could. As scared of going back into the headspace as he was of not getting Dean out.  
  
Dean lifted the remote out of Sam's hand and clicked the TV on – jerked violently when the sound blasted out at them. Some kind of cop show, officers yelling and guns blasting and a man's panicked voice, _please don't, please don't, oh God..._. Dean mashed the buttons and the TV went off with a tiny _pop_ and they both just sat there.  
  
"Not used to the noise," Dean said after a moment, strangled little laugh. Looking down – away. Anywhere but Sam, and Sam opened his mouth to say something and then didn't, after all. He wasn't really used to the noise anymore, either.  
  
  
Dean didn't sleep that night, moving restlessly around and around the room until Sam mentioned, casually, that he hadn't gotten around to cleaning any weapons lately. Dean looked relieved to have something to do with his hands and he bitched for three hours straight, cheerfully scrubbing and rubbing and breaking things down, hands moving with a stuttery hesitation until they remembered what they were doing.  
  
Sam lay on the bed with his pillows shoved up under his shoulders, shoes off and his hoodie zipped up. Just watching, blinking slower and slower until he slipped into a doze. The heater clicked on and off, humming, and the rain _tinked_ against the window, all but lost in the steady sounds of traffic from the interstate.  
  
And every time Sam jerked and moved and opened his eyes, Dean was right there.  
  
They stayed in the room for two more days, until Dean finally swore and threw a box of shells at Sam and Sam very nearly threw them back. After that they packed up and moved out, even though the room was paid through the end of the week and it was only Wednesday. Sam didn't even bother checking out.  
  
They hit the Massachusetts/New York border around two a.m. – were in Pike County, Pennsylvania around four. They followed the 209 as it paralleled the Appalachian Trail, twisting through gorges and up steep hills, awash in drizzle and February mist. Dean drove with a new tension in his shoulders as if this, too, had to be relearned. For the first time in a long time, he didn't put on any music.  
  
  
"Hey, Sammy." Dean's hand on Sam's shoulder woke him and Sam yawned, lifting his head from the back of the seat and wincing at the little stab of pain that shot through his stiff neck. "There's a plateful of biscuits and gravy calling your name," Dean said, grinning.  
  
Sam blinked, rubbing his hand over his face and yawning again. "I don't like biscuits and gravy."  
  
"Just another check-mark in the 'why I'm a freak' box, Sam. C'mon, I'm starving."  
  
Dean said he was starving a lot, but he wasn't keeping much down, and they hadn't actually eaten anywhere besides a hotel room or the back bumper of the Impala since he'd come back. Sam was starting to hate the idea of food – was hating the smudges of blue-black under Dean's eyes and the sharp jut of his wrist and cheek bones under too-pale skin.  
  
"Yeah, okay...where are we?"  
  
"Beautiful downtown Duncannon," Dean said, climbing out of the car and stretching. The pre-dawn street was surprisingly busy, with vehicles at the stop light and people standing in clumps on the sidewalk outside of what looked like a hardware store. Several parked trucks had rifles in the back window. Mist haloed the streetlights and puddles on the ground were ice-edged.  
  
"What's going on, you think?" Sam asked, slamming the car door and nodding toward the men in blaze-orange and flannel across the street.  
  
Dean shrugged, glancing at the little group and then away. "Annual state-wide hunt – saw a banner back at the bridge."  
  
"Huh." Sam followed Dean across the street and past the hunters – past the hardware store, which was ablaze with light and customers. Probably had a gun counter in the back. Next door was a diner, _Maybelline's_ in red and white across the plate-glass window. Café-style curtains in red-checked gingham and a handbill photocopied on yellow paper taped to the door: _15th Annual Yote Hunt! Come one, come all. Prizes up to $2,000 and games for the kids!_ "What the hell's a 'yote'?"  
  
"Coyote. They're hunting coyote." Dean pulled the door open and then froze for a moment as a wave of noise rolled over them, voices and kitchen sounds and a radio, turned up loud.  
  
"Maybe they do take-out," Sam said, and Dean straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin. _Sauntered_ into Maybelline's, cock-of-the-walk. Sam was pretty sure he was the only one who noticed that Dean's eyes were a bit too wide – that his hands were clenched into fists.  
  
The only open booth was at the back, fifth and last, and they walked down the narrow aisle between booths and counter, avoiding the out-flung legs and gesticulating hands of the revved-up crowd of hunters. They slid into the worn vinyl seats and Dean affected a nonchalant slouch into the corner. But his hands were shaking and Sam wanted to tell him they could just get back in the car. Just keep driving, if that's what made Dean feel safe.  
  
But he didn't, because Dean was _trying_ , even though every loud guffaw and raised voice from the diner crowd made him flinch, gaze darting here, there, and everywhere. Instead, Sam plucked a menu from the stainless holder behind the napkins and studied it, back and front.  
  
"They've got cheese hash-browns," Sam said. Dean didn't answer – was sitting up now, shoulders hunched and his fingers drumming restlessly on the table top.  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"I said, they've got cheese hash-browns. And French toast with choice of fruit...apple sounds good, maybe I'll get that." Dean wasn't really listening – was watching someone over Sam's shoulder with a hooded, hawk-like gaze – and Sam felt a little prickle of unease. He glanced behind him but there was nothing...there. Just the hunters, slurping coffee and joking around – flirting with the waitress in tones that made it clear they'd all known each other for years. "What looks good to you, Dean? _Dean_."  
  
"What the fuck, Sam?" Dean snapped. He glared at Sam – twitched restlessly when one of the hunters walked past, going for the bathroom.  
  
"I was just wondering what you wanted for breakfast," Sam said, and Dean just stared at him. Sam waved the menu. "Breakfast?"  
  
"Whatever. Eggs. I don't...care, just the usual."  
  
"Ookay." Sam put the menu down and glanced out the window. The clouds were getting lighter – the sun coming up somewhere and the drizzle easing off to nothing. A couple more hunters came up onto the sidewalk and peered over the curtains, rapping on the glass and shouting something and Dean jumped so hard he rocked the table. "Whoa, hey –"  
  
"Sam, shut the _fuck up_." Dean's hands were clenched tight into fists again, knuckles white. Silver tracery of scars showing along the backs of his hands. Dean's knee was up against Sam's, under the table, and Sam could feel the tremors that were going through his brother. The radio voice segued from something that sounded like a farm report to an announcement about the Yote hunt and the entire gang of hunters broke into excited whoops, pounding on the counter and table tops, cups jumping and silverware rattling and Dean came up halfway out of his seat. " _Fuck_ , fuck, Jesus Christ –"  
  
"Dean, it's okay." Sam held his hands out, not touching, and Dean subsided slowly back into his seat. Really shaking now, sheen of sweat on his face and his breathing starting to get fast – uneven.  
  
"God damnit," Dean whispered, avoiding Sam's gaze, white-knuckled and strung so tight it hurt to see. The radio announcement ended on the high-pitched holler of a coyote's howl and the hunters took it up. Loud and wavering and fairly horrible and Dean snapped. Bolting to his feet and straight into the guy coming back from the bathroom, knocking him sprawling into the counter, knee catching on a stool.  
  
"Hey! Jesus!" The man righted himself, reaching for Dean and Dean backhanded him away.  
  
"Don't fuckin' touch me!"  
  
"What the Hell's your problem?"  
  
"Just get outta my way." Dean headed for the door and two other hunters stood up – a third – and Sam knew he'd have a bruise across the tops of his thighs from standing up so fast – all but ripping the table off it's moorings in an effort to get up and get to Dean before he started something he might not be able to finish.  
  
"You need a lesson in manners there, son?" one of the hunters asked. Big guy in yellow plaid, beard and hat and nicotine-yellow teeth and Dean mowed him down with one hard, solid punch.  
  
 _*Shit, oh shit, too fucking late....*_ " _Dean_! Dean, stop –"  
  
"Get _out_ of my fucking way," Dean snapped. Panting – pushing forward into the packed mass of hunters who pushed back.  
  
"Fuck you!" The guy on the floor – nose pouring blood – lashed out with a heavy work boot and Dean stomped on his ankle and then.... And then Sam lost track of things as half the hunters piled on and Dean went into action.  
  
Smooth as a machine, kicking, punching – headbutting one unlucky bastard, and Sam tried to drag them off – tried to get Dean's attention. The waitress – forties, red-headed and pissed – was on the phone and Sam just _knew_ she was calling the fucking cops and Jesus _Christ_ they had to get the hell out.  
  
"Back off, back off, get the fuck _off_ , kill every fucking one of you, motherfuckers –" Dean was swinging wildly – was bloodied and bruised and wild-eyed – and somebody got an arm around his throat and then somebody else had his wrist. Sam shook off the bathroom-guy and waded forward over one prone man and one down on his knees, clutching his crotch. Grabbed a hunter and hurled him into a booth and then everybody was backing off so fast they were tripping – falling. Yelling, and the waitress was screaming and Dean –  
  
Dean had their Dad's Ka-bar knife, bringing the matte-black blade around in a low, deadly arc, razor edge glittering like diamonds. Sam knocked some slow bastard back into the counter and twisted, evading. Not _quite_ fast enough, though – the tip of the knife caught him across the chest and tore. Sternum to bicep in one long, shallow slice that didn't even hurt and then _did_ , white hot.  
  
" _Dean_ , stop, for Christ's sake –"  
  
"Back. Off." Dean's voice was a ragged growl, his lips pulled back in a snarl, the hand holding the knife shaking, shaking, shaking. Sam could hear a police siren, coming rapidly closer and Dean shook his head. His hand came up to his ear, covering it for a moment and then he was running. Plowing through the hunters and into the doors so hard one cracked. Forgetting that the door opened _in_ and Dean just _shoved_ , bending it the wrong way – snapping the hinges and gone, the door slamming into the tan brick of the building. The glass shattered, and Sam ran through the scatter of ice-green fragments, shouting for Dean.  
  
  
He caught up to him a block away, seeing his back view dart between two buildings. Sam followed, diving left into an alley that ended against a high chain-link fence. There were a couple of dumpsters on the left and a pile of faded wooden pallets to the right. And Dean, up against the chain link, his shoulder pressed to the splintery wood. Knife held out and down, breathing so hard Sam thought he might pass out.  
  
White – white as bone. Eyes too huge – too dazed – and the bruises blooming up under his skin, red-violet and awful. Streak of blood across his jaw – across his knuckles and Sam hoped to God he was the only one Dean had bloodied with that fucking knife.  
  
"Dean? Jesus, Dean – we gotta go, man, the cops –"  
  
"Get back, get off me, get _away_ from me...." Dean lifted the knife – swung it, clear warning – and Sam stopped.  
  
"Dean?"  
  
"I won't, you fuckers, I won't, you're _lying_. He's not...he can't be...I'm...I'll....get out, kill every f-fucking one of you, I –" Head down, seeing – something. Not seeing what was in front of him, Sam was sure. His lip was bleeding and Dean licked it – turned his head a little and spat, grimacing. "Fucking kill _all_ of you...." Dean was trembling, his legs wobbling and then he was falling. Knees giving out and his coat scraping down the fence – hand slapping at the pallets and losing their grip. Sam lunged forward, hands out and the knife came up, steady enough, even through the jolt of Dean's knees hitting the cracked concrete.  
  
Sam hovered there, just out of range, wondering if he dared get any closer because Dean...wasn't seeing him. Wasn't seeing anything, maybe. "Hey, Dean, it's me – it's Sam. C'mon, man...." Sam took one more step closer and Dean's head snapped up, snake-vicious gaze that hurt to see. Because it was directed at _Sam_ , and Sam didn't know what to do.  
  
"No, I'm not. No I'm _not_. I'm Dean...Winchester. I'm John's son, Mary's...Sam's brother. I was – was...." Dean pushed a little sideways, as if he were trying to burrow into the pallets but they didn't budge. He got one leg up – boot pressed to the ground as if he was going to stand, but his leg wobbled and he didn't. Stayed that way, his knee up in his chest, some kind of protection from whatever he was seeing.  
  
Seeing – reliving – and Sam felt, again, that ache of useless fury that had curdled inside him for four long months. He wanted to rip the world open and kill every demon he could find. Dean's free hand scrabbled at the pallets and found a grip – his other hand was up, wavering. Holding the knife out, warding off the nightmares he wouldn't talk about. The ones he almost wouldn't dare sleep for. "...was born in Lawrence, Kansas...John's son...Sam's b-brother –"  
  
"I need you to move away, sir," someone said, and Sam spun, startled. Utterly off guard. A man stood at the mouth of the alley. A _cop_ , and Sam felt his stomach drop. He lifted his hands, taking a step to the side. Putting himself decisively between the cop and Dean. Dean's voice muttered on, repeating himself.  
  
"Hey, it's okay, just listen, okay? This is my brother. This is my brother and he's not gonna hurt anyone."  
  
"Looks like he already did," the cop said, nodding, and Sam glanced hastily at the wet stain of blood down his chest – his arm. Finally registering the burning throb of it.  
  
"It's just a cut. It's shallow – I'm okay."  
  
"Will Jeeter's not. Got himself a busted nose. And Carl Tierpont? Couple broken ribs." The cop took a couple steps forward, his hand on the gun at his hip, and Sam took a step back.  
  
"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry that happened but – he.... Look, my brother, he's...he isn't –" _*Isn't what? Isn't fully recovered from the four months he spent in hell? Is jumping at fucking shadows and seeing shit and I don't know what to fucking do about it? Don't have the slightest God damn idea how to fix it and maybe he can't ever be fixed so please just go the fuck away, go away....*_  
  
"Sir, I need you to step away, right now." The cop was unsnapping the flap on the holster, walking forward – getting too fucking close and Sam was starting to panic.  
  
"Look, I swear, he won't do – he won't hurt anybody else, just let me –"  
  
" _Now_ , sir." The gun came out, smooth and fast, and Sam lifted his hands a little higher, wincing at the pull and burn of the cut.  
  
Stepping back and sideways and letting the cop see Dean. Letting him see the knife. The man's smooth, slow gait didn't falter, and Sam felt a tiny surge of respect for him. The guy was young – Dean's age, maybe – and doing a damn good job of not freaking out. Sam wished he could say the same. "Sir – officer, please –"  
  
"Shut up," the cop said, gaze fixed on Dean. "Sir? Sir, I need you to put that knife down."  
  
Dean was pushing back into the chain link, making it creak. Digging his nails into the rotten wood and Sam knew he'd have splinters – broken nails. The knife was still out, the tip wavering as the tremors came back and Dean's whole body shuddered to them. He was breathing too fast – too hard. Body going into shock and half way to shutting down, pupils too big and his lips pale. Fight or flight adrenalin decaying fast. "Lying, you're lying. I'm...Dean. John's...s-ss...Sam's brother. I don't...he's coming, he's c-coming...."  
  
The cop finally stopped walking – shot a hard look at Sam. "Is your brother on drugs?"  
  
" _No_. No, he's not; he was...he's..." Inspiration came like a bolt and Sam took a hard breath. Hoped like hell he was guessing right because this guy – this cop... He had something. A certain way of moving. A fucking _feel_ to him that Sam was all too familiar with. "He's a soldier. He hasn't been – back very long."  
  
"Shit." The cops arms – the gun – went down. His stance changed a little, easing out of the tense 'guard' pose and changing to something else. "Army?"  
  
"Marines," Sam said, letting his own arms slowly fall. "Echo 2/1?" Falling back on what he knew, Dad's old unit – maybe some of Dad's hoo-rah, if he had to. Cursing himself for lying to this man – for doing what his Dad would never – ever – have approved of. Or Dean, for that matter.  
  
The cop made a little shrugging motion, faint smile tugging up the corner of his mouth. He was dark-skinned – wiry under the bulky police coat. "I was Army, myself. Guess he had it pretty damn rough," the cop said, in a tone that conveyed anger and respect in equal measure, and Sam thought he just might be sick.  
  
 _*You deserve for him to be angry for you, Dean...deserve his fucking respect and I can't even tell the truth, can't even tell him what you really did – how much you really sacrificed for me. More than anyone ever should and nobody can ever know....*_ "Yeah, he...it was bad." There were voices suddenly – a lot of them, coming closer, and Sam looked up at the mouth of the alley – at the heads poking around the corner.  
  
"Shit," the cop said again, loud, and Dean flinched from it. Jerked back hard enough to rap his head into the pallets, rictus of teeth and bloody lips and the knife lifting again.  
  
"Get _away_ , fuckers, I'll kill you, fucking k-kill you...."  
  
"Listen – sir –"  
  
"It's Sam."  
  
"Okay. Sam. I'm gonna go up there and get the lookie-loos to back the hell off. Take statements and get 'em calmed down and you just...just stay here, okay? See if you can talk to him. Okay?"  
  
Sam felt relief like a rush of heat, making his joints weak for a second – making his eyes prickle with grateful, irritating tears. "Yeah, yeah okay, thanks. Thank you –"  
  
"It's James," the cop said, and then he dropped his gun back into its holster and backed up a step – turned and walked up the alley, his hands up, already talking. Taking charge and defusing things, and Sam took a hard, shaky breath. Turned around and took a few steps closer to Dean. Stopped when Dean jerked away, eyes wide. Sam stood for a moment and then he sank down cross-legged, the cold dampness coming instantly up through his jeans. The cut throbbed, and his shirt and jacket were sticking to him, clammy and uncomfortable. His stomach was achingly empty and his lips were chapped and none of it....mattered.  
  
"Dean? Hey, Dean, it's me. It's Sam. Sammy. I'm here, Dean. I'm right here..."

 

 

'Conscience Wide as Hell'

 

 _The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,  
And the flesh’d soldier, rough and hard of heart,  
In liberty of bloody hand shall range  
With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass  
Your fresh-fair virgins and your flowering infants._  
  
  
Duncannon was three days in their rearview before Dean would talk about it, and then it was only to shout Sam down – tell him to shut up. Tell him that _Sam_ should try four months in Hell; see if he did any better. Three hours later, Dean came back from wherever he'd been, stinking drunk. Telling Sam he was sorry, didn't mean it, sorry, sorry. Over and over, his voice thick with tears and his hand knotted in Sam's shirt. Not letting go until Sam said it was okay – they were okay.  
  
Dean fell asleep like a cried-out kid, face still wet and his chest hitching unevenly, curled tight into the nest of sheet, blanket, comforter. He woke up screaming before dawn and they were, Sam thought, right back where they started.  
  
  
"So, I'm thinkin' vengeful spirit," Dean said, handing the paper across the gap between the beds.  
  
Sam took it and skimmed the article that Dean had marked. "'Nine die over seven year period at sight of police stand-off'. Maybe. Or maybe it's just..."  
  
"Vengeful spirit, Sam."  
  
Sam sighed – tossed the paper back at Dean, who batted it away. "Yeah, okay. Maybe. But I was thinking –"  
  
"And that's your problem. You think too much." Dean bounced to his feet and paced across the room to the window, twitching the curtain aside so he could stare distractedly out the gap. "C'mon, Sam! It's been two straight weeks of sittin' around!"  
  
"It's only been thirteen days and you slept through three of them."  
  
Dean pulled the curtain shut and turned around, a look of exasperation on his face. "Dude, whatever. It's time to get back in the game."  
  
Sam stood up and went around the end of the bed, trying to ignore the fact that Dean immediately pushed past him, unwilling to let himself be trapped in the narrow space between wall, bed and Sam. "Dean, look –"  
  
" _Sam_." Dean's voice was raw and strained and just this side of a snarl. A clear indication that Dean was at the very ragged edge and Sam backed off; lifted his hands and physically removed himself to the table by the door. Watched Dean breathe – watched him smooth the newspaper and put it back together and then go wash newsprint off his fingers. Meticulously. One finger at a time.  
  
And then Sam watched Dean try to open the dresser-drawer so he could get at the phone book. The dresser was warped and sticky with grime, the drawer wedged crookedly and in about one minute Dean went from swearing and jerking at the pull to full-on steel-toed kicks and stomps. Sam was – very slightly, through his daze of _Jesus fucking Christ_ – proud of the fact that he didn't so much as flinch as Dean reduced about eighty pounds of pressboard and peeling veneer to kindling.  
  
"So, I guess we'll hit the library, huh?" Sam said blandly, into the haze of dust and wood chips. Dean, panting, gave him a look that could flay a man alive and retreated into the bathroom. He just missed slamming the door hard enough to knock it off the hinges. Sam stared at the wreck of the dresser until Dean came out again, the tips of his hair wet and his cuffs damp.  
  
"Think they'll notice?"  
  
"We'll put a sheet over it," Sam said, straight faced, and was totally unprepared for the snort of shocked laughter from Dean. He couldn't help grinning in response. After a moment, Dean rubbed his hand over his face –back through his hair – and sighed.  
  
"Fuck, Sam. I just wanna _do_ something. I can't take this...sitting around. I know I'm fucked up but I'm not useless, okay? I'm still a hunter."  
  
"I know you are," Sam said softly. He stood up and retrieved the newspaper – skimmed through the article again. "I wasn't kidding about the library, you know," he said, tossing the paper down. "We've gotta look up the original incident, all the subsequent deaths –"  
  
Dean was already pulling on his jacket – checking to be sure that his knife and gun and other knife were secure in their places at hip, back and inner pocket. "Wouldn't have it any other way, Sammy." He grabbed the car keys off the top of the TV, tossing and catching them. "Let's get to work."  
  
  
The library was quiet, at least, though that didn't seem to help. Dean's leg jiggled under the table so hard the microfiche machine wobbled, and every time someone moved, or coughed, or turned a page he _twitched_. After an hour, Sam was twitching right along with him, sympathetic nerves and every instinct their dad had trained into them coming to heart-pounding life. If Dean was wary then Sam _had_ to be, and his body didn't know any better even if his brain told him to calm the hell down.  
  
"Okay, fuck it, I'm done." Sam shuffled together photocopied county records and the notes he'd taken and Dean looked over at him, eyebrows going up.  
  
"You got everything already?"  
  
"No, I don't, but you're giving me a headache." Sam got up, hitching his messenger bag over his shoulder, shoving pens and pencil away and pushing his chair back under the table. Dean just sat there, glaring at the table top. "Dude, c'mon."  
  
"We've got a job to do, Sam –"  
  
"And we'll do it at the motel." Sam looked at Dean's hunched shoulders and white knuckles and wanted to kick himself. "These chairs are killing my back, man. I've got enough stuff here to get started, okay?"  
  
"Yeah, whatever." Dean shoved to his feet, ignoring his chair when it toppled over, and stalked toward the exit. Sam dithered for half a heartbeat and then followed him. Angry at himself, and angry at Dean for being so damn...sensitive and then angry at himself all over again because, hello, _four months in Hell_.  
  
Dean could walk damn fast when he wanted to and it took a little effort for Sam to catch up. Once outside, Dean went straight for his car and wrenched the door open. "I'll be back in a little while."  
  
"Dean, listen, I'm sorry –"  
  
"Nothin' to be sorry for," he said, not even looking at Sam. He got in, revved the engine and drove away with a snarl of tires on asphalt. Sam just stood there, watching the car turn a corner – gone – heart pounding and feeling like he might actually be sick.  
  
* _Fuck, he left, he actually...left, Jesus...*_ The motel was about a mile away and Sam headed there fast, hoping. But the parking lot was empty of all but two cars, neither one of them the _right_ one, and Sam let himself into their room and slung his bag down. Took out his phone and stared at it, then scrolled to Dean's number.  
  
" _What'd'ya want, Sam?_ "  
  
"What the hell, Dean? Where are you?"  
  
" _None of your business._ "  
  
"What? What does _that_ mean?"  
  
" _It means 'none of your business'. I'm just gonna get a drink._ "  
  
"It's three in the afternoon, Dean."  
  
" _Like that matters. Don't wait up, Sammy._ "  
  
The line went dead, then, and Sam clicked his phone shut a little harder than necessary. _*Fucking Dean and his fucking lame-ass ways of dealing and his totally fucking lame-ass inability to realize that I'm pretty fucking close to panicking right about now.*_ Sam crushed the _other_ voice in his head that primly pointed out that Dean wasn't exactly in his right mind and maybe Sam should be a little more worried about that than about how this all affected _him_. Grimly, Sam dragged the phone book out of the rubble of the dresser and looked up bars. There were only four, and he got his laptop booted up and Google Mapped them. Three were clustered near the east edge of town – one was on the far north. None were close, and Sam considered a taxi.  
  
Considered just sitting there and letting Dean get drunk and find his own way home, but the image of him in Duncannon, knife out and lips rolled back in a desperate snarl, made him ditch that idea pretty fast. He checked his wallet and tucked a gun into the small of his back – made sure the room was secure and left, heading east.  
  
 _Of course_ Dean was in the last bar Sam checked, the one to the north, and Sam's ears and nose and fingers were burning with cold by the time he got there. He was pissed off and freaked out and shivering and he pushed through the door a little harder than necessary, making the bartender look up fast, scowling.  
  
The sun was sliding westward, and the sky was clotting with dull-violet clouds, and the bar was half-empty. It smelled of smoke and beer and peanuts and must, and Sam sneezed and rubbed his wrist under his nose – looked around. Looked for Dean with his heart in his throat but... There – right there in the far corner, back wedged against the wall and every exit covered.  
  
The bottle sitting on the scarred table was half empty and Dean's shoulders were hunched, his head down, a squat, thick-rimmed glass cradled in both hands. Sam took a long, hard breath and tried to make his heart slow down – tried to batten down every emotion and just be...calm. Be fucking _neutral_ even though he wanted to give his brother a shake and yell at him – handcuff them wrist to wrist and just keep him _there_ , right in Sam's sight and hearing and fucking personal bubble 24/7.  
  
 _*Imagine the disaster of epic proportion that **that** would be.*_ Sam lifted his hand to the still-scowling bartender, trying to convey that everything was _fine_. Just fine. Then he walked over to Dean and pulled out a chair. Settled carefully, not reaching to grab the bottle or to smack his brother or to start babbling out apologies and questions and demands.  
  
"The cat came back," Dean muttered, and Sam huffed a tiny laugh.  
  
"'Fraid so," Sam said, and Dean reached out and picked up the bottle. Poured a couple inches of whiskey into his glass and set the bottle back down. Deliberate – slow. Showing Sam rather pointedly that he wasn't sloppy-drunk or shaking apart. "You mind?"  
  
"We're not joined at the hip, Sam."  
  
 _*We would be if Dad could have figured out how.*_ "No. But you just...left, man. That's not cool."  
  
Dean snorted – picked up his glass and drank, tipping the glass up and over with a stiff wrist, bolting the whisky down in one long swallow. "I'm a big boy, Sam. I can go out for a drink by myself if I want."  
  
"Sure," Sam agreed. Ran his fingertips along the worn-smooth edge of the table. "But maybe right now you should –"  
  
" _Don't_ tell me what I 'should', Sam." Dean looked up finally, his jaw set and his eyes narrowed – cold anger molding his features into a mask. "Don't even start with that shit. I'll do whatever the fucking hell I wanna do."  
  
"Yeah? And what if what you wanna do is pull a knife on a crowd of innocent people? Or maybe a gun, huh? What if –"  
  
"Shut up, Sam," Dean said.  
  
His voice was toneless – flat and not even very loud, a warning klaxon that Sam should have heard and obeyed but he was cold, and tired, and pissed off at the both of them and didn't care. "No, Dean! I get that you're...that this is fucked up, okay? I understand, but –"  
  
" _Shut. Up._ " Dean's fist was tight around the glass, knuckles white and his teeth clenched and Sam sat up straighter in his chair.  
  
"You can't do this, Dean. You can't just run off and...and get drunk and –"  
  
"Jesus _Christ_!" Dean's voice was a cracked roar and he stood up fast, caching the edge of the table and flinging it sideways, away from them both. He took two fast steps forward and grabbed a double handful of Sam's shirts – hauled him bodily up and around and _crack_ , straight into a wall. Sam's breath wheezed out of his lungs from the force of the blow and he clung to Dean's wrists, momentarily dazed.  
  
"Dean –"  
  
"You _shut up_ and you _listen_ to me," Dean growled, lifting Sam and slamming him back into the wall. "I'm _me_ , I'm the same person I was, I'm not up in a fucking bell tower or at the fucking _Mall_ of _America_ ," – two more lifts and slams and Sam was starting to get a little winded – "shooting little old fucking ladies and kids in strollers, okay?"  
  
"Okay, sure, Dean –"  
  
"So _don't_ follow me around like a God-damn overgrown fucking puppy trying to make sure I'm playing nice with the fucking _civilians_ 'cause it's really starting to piss me off, Sammy, it's really, really starting to _piss me off_."  
  
Sam was getting tired of being shaken like a rag-doll so he stiff-armed Dean away from him, scowling. Dean staggered back a few steps and stood there, breathing hard. "You're not exactly the poster child for rational right now, Dean! I told you, I understand –"  
  
"Fuck, you _understand_?" Dean was right back up in his face – his space – Sam's jacket twisted in his fist and his forearm across Sam's throat, pushing. "You understand shit. You need to back the fuck _off_ , Sam, before –"  
  
"Before what? Before you hurt me? Before you hurt somebody else?" Sam rabbit-punched Dean right in the ribs and Dean wheezed, his grip slacking. Sam pushed him away again but this time Dean didn't shove back – this time he lifted his fist and punched, hard. Right in the jaw and Sam felt his head snap back and hit the wall – felt his teeth click shut on the tip of his tongue. Burst of white-hot pain and a flood of salt-iron through his mouth and then Dean's forearm was across Sam's throat again. This time, though, he was pressing down in earnest, cutting off Sam's air as Sam clawed at the slick sleeve of Dean's jacket. "D-Dean –"  
  
"I'm trying to figure this shit out, okay? I'm trying to figure it out and I'm trying to make it – everything's so fucking _bright_ and I'm trying to – Sam, you don't fucking get it, you don't –"  
  
"You need to get the hell out of my bar," somebody said, loud through the rushing roar of blood in Sam's ears, and the pressure across his throat disappeared.  
  
"You need to shut the fuck up," Dean growled, and Sam blinked and then gaped in horror, because Dean had his 9mm out and jammed right into the soft part of the bartender's cheek, pulling the man's mouth up crooked on that side.  
  
"Dean, Jesus –"  
  
"Just g-get outta here. I wu-won't call the cops, just g-get out."  
  
" _Dean_ , stop, c'mon, please –" Sam didn't move – didn't want to breathe but he had to talk. Had to say something – do _something_ because the look on Dean's face wasn't rational. He looked, in fact, pretty much like he'd looked when he was confronting Meg, tied up in Bobby's sitting room and calmly telling them John Winchester was dead. "Dean, let's just – leave, Dean, let's just –"  
  
"Get away from me." Dean jerked the barrel of the gun away from the bartender – took one step backward, letting go of Sam's jacket and casting one wild look over the rest of the bar, where three or four other patrons were standing, staring. "Just leave me the fuck alone, all of you." He turned abruptly and stalked out, shoving the gun away and Sam sagged against the wall. Pulling in a shaky couple of breaths and then digging into his pocket for the fifty bucks he'd stuck in there. He crumpled it into the bartender's hand.  
  
"I'm sorry, he's...he really wouldn't hurt anybody, he's just –"  
  
"Get out," the man snapped, jerking away, and Sam just stood there for a moment. Then he turned and ran after Dean. Again.  
  
  
"Dean? Jesus, come on, Dean, where are you!" The car was still sitting there in front of the bar, crookedly across two parking slots. Sam stood there, fists jammed into his pockets and his nose running again, stinging from the cold. Wisconsin was at least twenty degrees colder than Pennsylvania had been, and there was a stiff breeze coming in from the north. The Sand Crane, it seemed, was right on the lakeshore and Sam looked past the weathered boards of the building to the gentle slope of the shore beyond. To the slate-blue waters of the lake itself, choppy with little white-caps, chilly looking.  
  
 _*Please don't be in the fucking water. Or near the water. Fuck, Dean...*_ Sam trudged across the parking lot and past the bar – kicked through knee-high weeds. Down near the lake there were the remnants of an old dock and some kind of boat house, listing sideways into the tawny-grey winter sedge. Sam sighed, and headed that way.  
  
Dean was sitting on the edge of the dock, hidden behind the shed. Sitting with the gun in his lap, his chin tucked down. Watching the water, or maybe the gun. Maybe his own hand, that had a flush of red across the knuckles. Sam walked across the spongy ground and stepped onto the grey boards of the dock. They shifted, creaking faintly, and Dean half-smiled.  
  
"You gonna keep following me everywhere I go?" Dean asked.  
  
Sam stood there for a moment, looking down at the bowed curve of Dean's neck – the longer-than-usual tufts of his hair that were sticking up every which way. "You gonna keep running away from me?"  
  
"Give it a rest, Sam."  
  
Sam sighed again – folded down cross legged next to Dean, elbows on his knees. "I'm never not going to..."  
  
"To what?" Dean looked over at Sam, mouth turned down. "To help? I don't think you can help, Sam."  
  
"How in hell would you know?" The tip of Sam's tongue throbbed, stinging. "Not like you're really giving me a chance, here."  
  
"Exactly how are you gonna fix this, Sam?" Dean shook his head, looking back out over the water. "You and I both know –"  
  
" _Know_? What do we _know_ , Dean, except that you won't talk about anything, you won't _say_ anything –"  
  
"Oh, fuck you, Sam," Dean said, and his voice sounded – so damn tired. Just...scraped thin and gone and Sam shut up. "What do you want me to say, huh? Want me to say it was horrible? Want me to say I fucking screamed? I _begged_? 'Cause I did, Sam. I did. All that and more." Dean rubbed the back of his wrist along his cheekbone, gun in the same hand. Gun too close to his face and Sam saw the silver sheen of moisture, smeared along his skin. "And you know the worst...the worst thing?" Dean's voice caught – broke – and he took a shuddering breath.  
  
"Dean –"  
  
"The worst thing was, I kept thinkin'...if only Dad were still there. If Dad were there, maybe I could...stand it. Maybe I could...t-take...it –" Dean turned away, pulling his dangling feet up and putting his forehead onto his knees, arms locked tight around his shins. His shoulders heaved, and Sam knew he was crying. Crying, and trying to muffle it just like he always did when he was a kid; curling up tight and half-smothering himself so no one – so _Dad_ – wouldn't hear.  
  
 _*Fuck, oh, fuck...*_ Sam reached out, hesitant, and laid his hand on Dean's back, flat between his shoulder blades and Dean flinched hard, jerking away. One leg falling, knee to the dock and his palm as he wrenched himself away, the gun hitting the rotting deck with a hollow _thunk_.  
  
" _Don't_." It was a plea, agonized and desperate, and Sam snatched his hand away.  
  
And then swallowed a mouthful of blood and spit and scooted closer – wound his arms around Dean's shoulders and curled himself down over his brother. Touch, protection – connection.  
  
"Ssam –" Dean's bitten-down nails scrubbed bluntly at Sam's wrists and Sam just held on tighter – got one leg crooked around Dean's, thigh to thigh and Dean's knee in the hollow of his own.  
  
"Not gonna leave you alone, Dean, not gonna _leave_ , I just...just let me, Dean, please, just...let me...let me...."  
  
Dean struggled on – three, four, five minutes. And then he stopped, all at once. Stopped and went limp, panting softly. Cold drops spattering down on Sam's fingers where they were locked across Dean's chest and Sam just tugged him closer and held on, until the sky and the water and the sedge all blurred into a violet-grey softness.

 

 

 

  
'Mad Blood Stirring'

 

 _I pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:  
The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,  
And, if we meet, we shall not ’scape a brawl;  
For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring._  
  
  
  
 _"I don't hold the contract, Sam. I'm just a go-between. Middle-demon, as it were." A grin, full lips stretching over white, white teeth.  
  
"Then who does? Tell me, or –"  
  
"Or what? You'll shoot me dead? Never find out anything that way." The grin is all sharp edges and spit-slick shine – red tongue and red eyes like some kind of rabid dog.  
  
"I'll just summon another one of you. Not like I don't know your names."  
  
"What's in a name, Sam? Not the answer to your prayers, that's for sure." There's noise somewhere – a growling, like a wild animal. A keening howl and Sam knows – he's too late. Hellhounds loose on Dean's trail and it's too fucking late, too late, and it's just like Dad, there's nothing he can do, there's nothing and Dean is screaming, he's screaming, he's **dying** , oh God, he's –_  
  
" _Dean_!" Sam shuddered up out of sleep, Dean's name on his lips like a groan. Salt-iron taste in his mouth, his face wet. His heart was pounding so hard it hurt and he squinted into the light, panting. Confused as hell because since when did they sleep with the lights on? _*Lights, lights....oh. Power must've come back on....*_ They'd lost it right before check-in – had stripped out of their wet clothes in the glow of Dean's flashlight and fallen into bed within minutes, exhausted. And now the lights were back on. Sam ground his finger-tips against his eyes and then actually _looked_ , taking in his surroundings for the first time. The whole room was...red. Scarlet, ruby, crimson – _blood_. Red shag carpet that climbed the walls behind the beds in lieu of headboards. Red comforters, red wallpaper, dented red lampshades and red _towels_ , for fuck's sake, snaking out of a red-tiled nightmare of a bathroom, splotched darker with water. _*It's like a fucking slaughterhouse in here. Jesus Christ.*_  
  
There was a sudden noise – dream noise, animal noise – and Sam shoved the covers off his legs and stood up, searching. Dean – Dean wasn't in his bed, Dean wasn't _anywhere_ and the panic came back like a hammer stroke. Sick clench of Sam's gut – sudden prickle of cold sweat and Sam bolted around the end of Dean's bed. Hit the corner with his knee and tripped – slipped in a pool of red. _*What the fuck, what the **fuck**!*_ It was material. Cheap, shiny polyester the color of _*blood*_ strawberry soda. It puddled around Sam's feet and he kicked at it.  
  
"Dean?" That noise again – panic and warning and pain and Sam focused on it – found it. Little cubby of a closet, the door a piece of cracked red plastic, creased like an accordion; gap showing on the side where the little magnetic latch had failed. Gap, and a bulge, and a sliver of pale skin. Sam darted forward, skidded on the puffy slipperiness of the comforter and went down hard, concrete jolting his knees and left wrist. " _Dean_?"  
  
No answer, just that _noise_ , thick and ragged and raw and Sam wasn't thinking, not really, just reacting. Reaching for the barrier between them, intent on getting rid of it. Caught in the terror of the dream – sleep-fogged and panicking and freaking out on the _red red red_. The plastic door ripped under his hand, a too-hard jerk that took it off its track and sent it flapping and falling, sharp slap against the wall. And Dean – was right there, crammed into the two-foot by two-foot space, shoulders tight against dull-white plaster. Eyes squeezed shut and his hair spiky-wet and a gun gripped so tight in his hands his knuckles were white.  
  
"Dean? Hey, Dean, it's okay, it's okay –" Sam reached – put his hand on Dean, up close to his neck. He knew better – had known better for years, because you _don't_ do that kind of thing around a man who's seen war. You don't startle a soldier, or a hunter. You don't wake them up with a hand on their shoulder unless you want a fist in your gut, or worse. Lesson learned at Dad's knee, at Bobby's house, at Caleb's camp, where hunters slept in cat-naps and if you made noise – moved too fast – their eyes slitted open and their hands reached for the nearest weapon. Sam squeezed gently and Dean made that _noise. Again._ Like a wolf caught in a trap – like a man gut-shot and left to die and Sam felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.  
  
"Dean, come on, wake up –"  
  
Dean's lips were moving and then his voice was suddenly audible, like a radio switching on. "... _libera nos a malo, libera nos a malo_..." Dean's eyes snapped open and he looked straight at Sam. "You're not here." And then he launched himself, flat out, cannoning into Sam like a lion. Knocking him back, bowling him over and they both rolled, crashing into the cherry-wood veneer of the dresser and sending something – knife, gun, flask – thumping to the floor.  
  
Sam fought back out of sheer startlement but Dean was going on instinct, adrenalin and terror in every ragged breath he took and Sam found himself flat on his back, Dean's knees in his belly and the gun jammed up tight under his chin. Dean's Desert Eagle, for fuck's sake; hand cannon that could take the top of Sam's head right off and Sam froze, panting. One hand twisted tight in Dean's damp t-shirt, the other caught under his own hip, fingers jammed painfully into the floor. The muzzle of the gun making a sharp, cold point of pain against the bone of his jaw and he swallowed oh-so-carefully.  
  
"Dean –"  
  
"You're _not here_." Dean shifted, one leg slipping sideways down Sam's hip and Sam winced, trying not to move. The gun ground up harder, pushing, and Sam felt skin tear, catching on the sight. Dean's fist in his hair, yanking his head back further, making Sam's neck creak. "You're not him. Sam's not...duh-dead, he's _not_ in Hell and you're fucking _not him_ , you l-lying bastard."  
  
"You're not – we're not in Hell." Sam tugged at his pinned hand – got it free only to have Dean's palm come down on his wrist, squeezing hard enough to make Sam's hand go almost instantly numb. "I got you out, Dean, I got you _out_ , I swear, you're out, can't you remember?" _*Please, please remember, please remember...*_  
  
Dean stared at him, eyes far too wide, all pupil and whites, nostrils flaring and his lips pulled back in a snarl. Nothing in his wild-horse stare of recognition or sanity.  
  
"Dean, Dean, listen, please –"  
  
"Fuck you," Dean snapped, and Sam heard the slight scrape of the trigger, moving.  
  
 _*No, no, nonono...think, fuck, just –*_ Sam opened his mouth, hoping to God something intelligent would come out, his belly knotted so tight he thought he might throw up. His brain skittered from thought to thought, frantic. _Think, think, fuck's sake, can't remember, I can't **remember** –*_ "Duh-D- _Deus_!" Sam gasped out, and Dean blinked. " _Benedictus Deus. Benedictum Momen Sanctum eius. B-benedictus Jesus Christus, verus Deus et v-veruss...homo._ Dean, listen, I'm not – it's me, it's Sam. _Benedictum Nomen Jesu. Benedictum Cor eius sacratissimum._ A demon can't say the Divine Praises, Dean! It's me, it's Sam, it's Sam." _*Please, please...*_.  
  
Sam felt Dean's weight shift, infinitesimally. Felt the grip on his wrist ease, and the gun slip a little sideways on the sweat-slick skin of Sam's jaw. It was enough. With the practice of years, he bucked, twisting, and threw Dean off him. Flung him into the end of the mattress and Dean hit and rebounded, clawing at the comforter. It slithered off the bed, falling over his face and Dean – _screamed_.  
  
"Oh, _shit_." Sam scrabbled across three feet of carpet to where Dean thrashed, yanking the material away from his face – off his body. One knee between Dean's thighs, grabbing Dean's face and forcing him to look. Dean's hands came up, pure reflex, and locked tight on Sam's wrists. " _Dean_!" Dean froze. His eyes darted wildly and Sam gave him the tiniest of shakes, willing him to see. Sweat beaded at Dean's hairline, his t-shirt was ripped and his heart was thudding so hard Sam could feel it, fluttering under the edge of his hands.  
  
"Sam?"  
  
Dean's voice, but not. Ragged – hoarse. Barely audible and cracking and so damn...scared. Terrified, and Sam felt the air go out of him in a strangled, shaking sob. "Yeah, yes, oh _fuck_ , Dean, yeah, it's me, it's Sam."  
  
"I thought.... Th-thought I was...it was...."  
  
"Yeah, shhh, I know. But it's okay, it's okay." Dean's face was wet: sweat, tears, Sam couldn't tell. His thumbs moved gently – deliberately – obliterating the damp trails. "You're safe. You're out of there, Dean, you're safe, it's okay."  
  
"No...." Dean struggled, pushing, and Sam let go. "It's not okay, Ssam." Sam let himself be pushed back into the bed, Dean twisting himself up and into a sitting position, his legs sprawled straight out in front of him. He lifted the hem of his t-shirt and scrubbed at his face and Sam stared in furious horror at the cobweb shimmer of scars that criss-crossed the flat planes of Dean's belly.  
  
"You just had a – a nightmare, Dean, that's all."  
  
Dean dropped his shirt and glared at him. He was sheet-white, his eyes sunk into blue-bruised hollows from lack of sleep, his lips chewed ragged. "I didn't have a fucking _n-nightmare_ , Sam! I...I was –" Dean ran his hand distractedly back through his hair, looking anywhere but at Sam. His gaze fell on the discarded gun and he went whiter, if that were even possible. "Oh, _Christ_ , you hurt? Are you okay?" Dean's hands reached out, automatic – skimming over Sam's arms, cupping his jaw. Turning Sam's head and then his fingers went still. "You're bleeding."  
  
"It's just a scratch. Seriously, Dean, I'm fine –"  
  
"I can see the fucking imprint from the muzzle, Sam! I almost – _God_ – I almost sh-shhot –"  
  
" _No_ , no, you didn't. Dean? You _didn't_ , you –"  
  
Dean's hands slid from their grip on Sam's skull – dropped limply into his lap. "Shut up, Sam. I did. I almost k-killed...you. Almost killed you...."  
  
"Dean –" Sam didn't know what to say, after that. Didn't know where to go and finally he just wormed around until he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with his brother, hands in his lap and the ugly comforter bunched uncomfortably behind him.  
  
"It's this fucking...room," Dean said. He lifted his hands and buried his face in them for a moment – scrubbed them back over his skull, making his hair stick up in a 'backwards through a hedge' way that normally Sam would have had to laugh at. "Pretty fucking stupid, huh?" Dean's voice broke into an ugly laugh. "I w-woke up, and the power was back on, and I just... I wanted to get clean. I fucking...took a shower and went to get clothes and all this fucking... _red_.... Blood fucking red everywhere I...looked and I'm tryin' to just...ignore it, you know?" Dean looked up at Sam, expression plaintive, and Sam nodded, forcing himself not to speak.  
  
"I mean, I was _trying_ , man! I was...doin' okay, I thought I was doin'...okay but it's like...everything kept...moving and, the floor was wet, I thought it was wet and then...you were, there was...." Dean rubbed at his face again and then laced his fingers together in his lap, squeezing hard. "I thought you had b-blood on you, and then I thought...you were talking and you said...you were dead, you said you'd killed yourself because _I_ was dead, and you said...you opened your eyes and they were b-black and you said suicides go to hell anyway, Dean and...this fucking _room_...." Dean rubbed his palms on his thighs, his breath hitching – his eyes widening and Sam knew it was all coming back.  
  
Knew whatever _*flashback*_ nightmare that had taken Dean over in the first place was flooding right back in and that the fucked up slaughterhouse of a room wasn't helping. "Okay – okay, it's okay, listen – Dean?"  
  
"Everything's bloody, Sam, everything's... _covered_ in –" Dean was frantically washing his hands together, his voice climbing in pitch and volume and Sam felt his own heart skip a beat, pack mentality sending him skittering down the same panicked path.  
  
"No, it's not – Dean – hey –" Sam reached out and got his hands on Dean's – forced them still, leaning in close. " _Dean_. Stop. I want you to get up and get the hell out of here. Right now. Go get in the car. I'm gonna get our stuff. Five minutes, Dean – we are unassing this AO _right now_ , you got me? Dean?"  
  
Dean stared at him – blinked, his gaze flicking over Sam's shoulders and then back, eyes too wide, face too pale, shaking apart under Sam's hands and Sam wished, for one long moment, that he had Andy's power, and could just make Dean...forget.  
  
"Dean. We are _leaving_. Move."  
  
Dean took in a sharp breath and the frantic, confused expression snapped off his face. "Got it, I got it. Let's go."  
  
"Roger that." Sam stood first, hauling Dean after him – pushed him toward the door. Scanning the room automatically for their things: reaching for a shirt that was draped over a chair, shoving his foot into a tumbled sneaker. Dean picked his jacket up off the dresser and got it on – got his own shoes on and opened the door.  
  
"Sammy? You sure you can – are you – can you get out?"  
  
"Not even Hell can hold a Winchester, Dean. Three minutes."  
  
"Three minutes." Dean lingered at the door for another heartbeat, and then he was gone.  
  
Sam made it out the door in two and a half.  
  
  
  
  
It was raining again outside – or still raining, maybe; tail-end of the storm that had soaked them before. Dean was standing beside the car, one fist resting on the roof, head tilted back to the sky. Standing in the glow of the single street light, and the paint on the car gleamed like the hide of some pampered animal, all ink black and liquid crystal sheen. The sodium-white light leeched all the color out of Dean and Sam stumbled, staring at him. Dean looked like a photograph, like some art-college student's black-and-white project. 'Anguish' or 'Lost' or maybe fucking 'Heartbroken' sticky-taped underneath.  
  
Just broken, maybe, though Sam refused to consider that. Refused to imagine that this was where Dean would always be; lost in a war that would never end, too damaged to heal and Sam helpless to fix him – to even offer up a useful solution.  
  
He shifted his grip on Dean's duffel – deliberately scuffed his foot across the scattered gravel on the asphalt and Dean's head came down, his gaze snapping to Sam, wary and shuttered. Dean moved toward the back of the car – fished out the keys and opened the trunk. Sam shoved their duffels away – stopped at the hesitant touch of Dean's hand on his arm.  
  
"I think...you better drive, Sam. I'm..." Dean looked away, jaw gritted tight. Made a little motion with his hand, clenching it down to a fist again when they both saw the tremor there. "I'm pretty fuckin' tired."  
  
"Yeah, Dean. Sure, I can drive." Sam held out his hand and Dean pressed the keys into his palm, fingertips ghosting cold across Sam's skin. They both got in, and Sam tweaked the rearview mirror a hair's breadth – turned the key and revved the engine and then spent a moment fussing with the heater and the vents, getting the bloom of fog off the inside of the windshield so he could see. He glanced over at the motel and shuddered. The warped door didn't latch quite right – the lock had been the only thing keeping it shut – and as he watched, the door swung slowly open, revealing the interior. It glowed, like the chambers of an exposed heart, sullen crimson and dull scarlet and Dean made a strangled sort of sound in the seat beside him.  
  
"Christ, Sammy, just _drive_ , okay? Just fucking drive."  
  
Sam drove.  
  
  
Dean told him to head east and Sam did, hitting cruising speed on Highway 2, taking it east across the top of Wisconsin and Michigan, dawn lighting everything to a smoky silver-green somewhere in the Ottawa National Forest.  
  
Sam slowed for a sharp curve – steered around a lump of blood-dark fur that had probably been a raccoon – and Dean stirred in his seat. He hadn't slept, only stared out the window in total silence, not even acknowledging the Eagles Greatest Hits that Sam had put in somewhere around Ironwood.  
  
Dean lifted the half-empty soda bottle from the seat beside him and took a long drink. "You remember Sergeant Taylor?"  
  
Sam had to think, taking another slow curve, flicking a glance over at Dean, who was pushing his feet into the well, stretching his legs just a little. "Was he...you mean that guy in Jersey?"  
  
"Yeah, Dad's buddy. Had that camp in the Pine Barrens?"  
  
Sam tapped his fingers on the wheel, remembering. Remembering one long summer, the heat liquid and still under the pine trees, the sandy earth giving way to the river shore, and Jack Taylor's hand-built cabin, hung with weapons and gear. Sam and Dean had slept all that summer in a tree house twenty feet up, learning how to cook over an open fire and how to make napalm from soap and gasoline. "Yeah, I remember him. I remember he had anti-personnel mines all up his road and a fucking tiger trap behind the outhouse. What do you – we're not going _there_ , are we?"  
  
"I need to talk to him."  
  
"What? Why? Sergeant Taylor was – he was –"  
  
"Crazy. He was crazy, Sam. You can say it. In country for three tours, came back one doughnut short of a dozen. Talked to people that weren't there and unloaded a clip or two of ammo at shadows every couple'a days."  
  
"And you need to talk to him... _why_?"  
  
"I need to...I wanna ask him...how not to be crazy."  
  
Sam blinked, gripping the wheel. Staring ahead at the dense greens and blacks of the forest, the slick-wet ribbon of the highway that unrolled before and after, unending. "He wasn't exactly being 'not crazy', Dean."  
  
"That was then. I ran up there for this book once when you were...when I was hunting on my own and he's...fine now. He's fine."  
  
"Or you caught him on a good day. Dean –"  
  
"Sam, _don't_." Dean was staring intently out his window, shoulders hunched in his jacket and his fingers all but crushing the bottle. He had a bruise coming up on his jaw where Sam supposed he'd got a hit in, back at the motel. "He was...he said it was hell, over there. He said...he saw things...did things...nobody in the real world'd ever believe. He got...lost in all that shit, man, he kept getting dragged back there until –" Dean gestured wildly with the soda bottle. "Until the Batsto River was the freakin' Mekong!"  
  
"Yeah, and?" Sam couldn't stop looking over at Dean, trying not to hit the shoulder or cross the center line – trying to make sense of Dean's thought process.  
  
" _And_.... If he figured out how to – how to stop that from happening then maybe...." Dean shrugged – finally turned his head and looked at Sam, brittle smile on his lips. "Maybe he can show _me_ how, you know? Maybe he can...patch me up, get me running again."  
  
"You're not a fucking broken engine, Dean."  
  
"I feel like it. Feel like I'm missing something, Sam. Feels like...something got left behind or...they... Maybe they kept something, I dunno. I'm not _right_ , okay? I'm not...whole."  
  
"Dean –" Sam said, helpless. Didn't have anything _else_ to say. Jack Taylor had scared the hell out of thirteen year old Sam. He had talked about things and people that weren't there – had yelled and moaned and whimpered in his sleep. A gaunt, wild-eyed man who knew more about the Jersey Devil and water spirits than any other man alive. A broken tin soldier who'd – somehow, maybe – mended himself.  
  
"C'mon, Sam," Dean said, and his voice was soft – pleading. Edged with that self-loathing that meant Dean was sharing more than he wanted to. "I really...I gotta do something, man, 'cause this isn't.... I'm losing my grip, man. I'm just...I dunno if I can...hold on."  
  
"You can," Sam insisted. Automatic as breathing, and Dean gave a soft, sobbing laugh, turning away again, rubbing his knuckles fast and hard across his eyes. "Dean, you _can_. You're the strongest fucking person I know. You can do...God, you can do anything. I know you can."  
  
"Sammy...I really can't," Dean whispered, and Sam hit the brakes.  
  
Steered the car off the road and onto the gravel verge, wincing as a branch scraped down the glass of the passenger window. Ignoring Dean's startled yelp of protest. He was pretty sure it was too soon – pretty sure Dean would clock him one or maybe just walk out on him. But he just...had to. Just this once, selfish desire that had been simmering in him for days. He twisted on the seat, hitching himself sideways. Reaching for Dean and dragging him close, fist in the collar of Dean's jacket, other hand on Dean's jaw, turning his face. Bringing him close and then Sam kissed him.  
  
Months of throttled terror and anger – months of loneliness like a sharp-toothed cancer, gnawing at him. And now – days. Days of 'just this close but no closer' and Dean fracturing like hammer-crushed glass, spider web of cracks that grew wider and deeper, day by day.  
  
Dean tasted like sugar and salt and stale mint, and he was frozen, unmoving under Sam's lips for half a dozen heartbeats. And then he kissed back, shaky little rush of air against Sam's mouth, shaky curl of his hand behind Sam's head, fingers caught in Sam's hair. It seemed to go on forever, but it probably wasn't even a minute and then Dean pulled back, just a little.  
  
Sam didn't let him go far – made him stay close enough that his lashes touched Sam's cheek, butterfly flick and flutter, his breath warm on Sam's lips. "Dean, okay, okay, just...if you think he.... If that's what you want, whatever you want, we'll...I won't...we'll just go, okay? We'll just go and maybe he can, maybe he...knows...."  
  
"Thanks, Sam," Dean murmured, lips brushing, and Sam kissed him again. A little less desperate, a little more reverently. Shiver going all through him because once upon a time he'd been so sure that he would never have this again.  
  
"Anytime, Dean. Anytime."

 


End file.
